Fish Sea Creatures

When we decide to speak or move, unconscious physical and psychological impulses and processes occur to produce the response. These deeply unconscious processes are often depicted by fish. The fish can therefore depict something arising from within us that could be nourishing or threatening, depending on ones dream. For instance a person might allow feelings from within to emerge that had been held back. As the feelings flow a new sense of self might emerge, and be depicted as a fish.

It can also show the attitudes and urges we have in common with humanity – the collective unconscious – and the impulses or insights arising therefrom – can therefore represent the Self or Christ – the collective unconscious. Also the sexual drive in connection with reproduction, the many little fishes being sperm. In this sense we are the fish which swam the incredible journey and grew into a human, but is still on the odyssey of life and death. The fish may be the wisdom we have not yet brought to consciousness, regarding our personal journey in time and eternity.

Example: ‘Last week I suddenly started having a recurring dream. In it I woke, walked downstairs, went into the kitchen and looked in the kettle. It was full of little fish.’ Karen LBC.

The fact that Karen goes ‘downstairs’, suggests the lower part of her body, and the shape of the kettle, which is a round container, make it likely this dream is about pregnancy.

Example: Dreamt I was standing in a location by the bench where the carpet begins. The carpeted area and the hall was nearly a foot deep in water. (I had seen the kitchen as cold and uninviting and had bought some carpet and put it down to make it a softer area for my children.) I had bought all three fish. They were wrapped up. I unwrapped them and dropped them in the water. They immediately revived and swam away making a threshing noise in the water.

We had guests in the sitting-room, and after a while I went to look for the fish. The guests were just leaving the sitting-room to go upstairs. I found the fish and a carpet near the sitting-room door. It looked like the fish had been pushed there like rubbish. The scales were worn off and I felt upset by seeing them in that condition. I picked them up and wash them. Their heads were cut off and I was going to put them in the freezer.

This extraordinary dream was explored by the dreamer. He said of it, “I worked on the fish dream alone for a while, and nothing at all came for ages. Then suddenly I remembered how I had been thinking about fish during the day. I had seen how I stood out for my desire for fish despite my wife’s protestations. This was something I had not done before. The fish were my statement of strength in my own home. The carpeted area I had already seen as my putting a carpet down as giving of self to family and home. I had remembered talking to a friend about this the day before. After this I couldn’t get anything. But in the evening I was listening to a record – John Denver –  and I thought of my impressions of self when I went to Mr. Markham’s house. I realised myself as a very unimportant, middle-aged, not very successful man. I felt very humbled, and also the deeply gentle love for others that comes from such humility.

Then the words in the songs said, “The fish in the water,” and like a flash I realised what the water meant. Throughout the weekend I had been saying to the group, “The fish in the water doesn’t know it’s in the water. We are often so immersed in an attitude or state of consciousness we don’t even know we are in it.” My growing strength and self giving is so immersed in some sort of attitude I am unable as yet even to know I am in it.

A lot of emotion came. I cried with a feeling of humility and love for my wife. But I cried about something the crying didn’t make clear. Yet in a certain sense I felt the crying was like a breaking down, dying process.

Then I realised that was probably what the fish dream meant. The thing I was immersed in is my home that I don’t want to see. “The waters of Life. Self giving. All that which flows out of a man into his family, his sperm, his care, his strength, flowing out to his family. That’s the waters. That’s the dream. In the dream I gave my fish into my family, and I swam away. They said to me, “What is this fear underneath your pride? What is the strength underneath your fear?”

“They swam. Then they were under the mat, broken. That’s what life is. A proud, beautiful flowing out of strength, and then, it’s just swept under the mat. Life just builds bodies and then breaks them. Broken bodies on the sea of life. Life once flowed through them, now they are just so much waste on the flow of life, just like empty tins discarded.”

Here I had pictures of a group of monkeys all children. I saw how the fear or shock felt was usually only if their parent or comrades felt that falling over, shouting, fighting, was something to cry about instead of enjoy, that they started feeling apprehensive about the tumble of life.

“They don’t care if they are a part of it, a part of the group, not excluded. If they are loved it doesn’t matter that a foot occasionally comes out of the wrestling match and hits you in the ear. We are just these animals, who look in on the fight, the shouting, the loving, and say, is it all right? What’s going on? Is it something to be frightened of or to enjoy? If we go up to them and say, “It’s OK. We love you.” We are like those monkeys in the book, The Shadow of Man, who hold each other’s hand if something frightening happens. Then we look at each other. “Is this something we’ve got to be frightened of? You don’t look as frightened as you were, so I’m not frightened.”

The little ones are looking to as for clues all the time. All the time looking. They’re asking, “Is it okay? Is it okay if I get knocked over? Is it okay if someone shouts?” “Yes, sure it okay. It’s all part of living and being human.”

“Oh that’s OK then. “Sure, roll about a bit.”

Then I began to shout, “Let me out please. Let me out of here,” banging my chest. As I cried out my head turned to the left and I felt I was a fish. The position was appropriate because my head had an eye each side of my body. I remembered my two fish dreams, one with the dead fish covered in flies.

“Stinking dead fish. Something really rotten. Something really stinking, right in their (in my left chest).” Suddenly I took on a very nose in the air, supercilious attitude toward this rotten thing in my chest. “Quite horrible. It’s a stinking thing. A stinking thing. It’s a stinking fish. Take it away.”

Now my superciliousness of voice and face went. “It’s a fish, like the fish under the carpet in the dream. It’s a bit of me. The wreckage of life. I am a bit of the wreckage of life. Dead fish – out of water – how does it all link up? Such a huge thing this dead fish.” Its fear of death – fish out of water – teenage – the pain in the chest – the weak? There’s something missing so I can’t link it all up.”

My father who had a all this bloody muck on top of him from our culture about tits and brassieres, and pictures of women with their legs open, as if that was womanhood. That’s not womanhood. It’s a part of a woman’s equipment, but a woman is something so different. Womanhood is a lovely thing. Why picture it as all those things? It’s not just a fairytale thing. A woman is a real animal who feels, behind all that from her body. There’s a real human being, with fears, hopes, love, weakness, strength, and we give our youngsters this bloody stupid image – of men too – part of the deadness.

As I held my wife and touched her body I wept at the depth of feeling between us. I also saw my hands upon her, and observed their strength. I felt the strength of my manhood.

“I have all my life fought and worked hard to gain strength, unconsciously fearing I was weak. Yet now I can see that I am a strong man. I am strong just through being myself. I am strong in my own right, not through doing anything to make me strong.”

After a long time of looking and touching and drawing closer, we got into bed and lay close together. There was no attempt to make love. My body at this point did not seek this and there was no direction. We talked about this. I felt that Life or God married/united couples through flowing through them, and we must wait for that. Gradually it happened and a very satisfying coming together occurred.

As we lay together afterwards many things arose into my awareness. I wondered what power intercourse had to do with a timeless or eternal, and a completely new (for me) view of our union and the eternal arose. Before we had come upstairs I had seen how mankind exteriorise everything. They exteriorise God, the Church, the eternal. Yet the altar, the Church, God, are our own being, our own everyday experience, and the act of love is the act of Creation, birth and death, the void, everything. Yet our union, after all, had been unspectacular. How was worship, sacrifice, God, all involved in it?

I saw that if we approached each other in reverence, care, gentleness, then we approached Life itself. There is no imagination needed to understand that. Our partner, our own being, is Life incarnate. It is only an attitude that causes us to approach without care, prayerfulness or reverence.”

The following was an inner insight the man received about a dream in which, “I seemed to be also see inside the tunnel looking down on the river and seeing many fish or fish shapes in the water flowing or moving to the tunnel end.”

Example: The river really lives within your soul; the fish are released from another reality beyond your own personal life. The reason you see living fish and shapes represents long-term benefits. Your present life brings into being factors that will not really live except in other lifetimes. These fish will nevertheless afford prizes in the form of bonus outflows from the one life. Your present life will release much that arises from the future. You are a gateway for the future to pour into the present. The past releases the living fish. Past and future are from the one source.

Dead fish: Non expression of basic urges. Non giving of self. No loving sexual giving.

Eaten by fish: Feeling threatened by irrational urges or emotions; threat of losing conscious or rational direction of life. It is an example of fear of Life in us and so repressing its urges.

Eating fish: Integrating our inner realisations. Partaking of Christ – i.e. feeling connected with society and the world, as in communion. Being a part of everyday life in giving and receiving.

Fishing: Creating a receptive state of consciousness which allows the deep insights or processes to become known; trying to find spiritual nourishment; ‘fishing’ for ideas; compliments or information; seeking intuition.

Many little fish in round container: Could be sperm or depict becoming, or wanting to become pregnant.

crab The shell of brittle emotions we guard ourselves with grasping or hurtful attitudes. Being nipped by crab: Physical or psychosomatic pain or even illness caused by being too tight or self protective.

Dolphin and porpoise Because dolphins are wild creatures of the sea that actively develop a relationship with humans, they are often taken to represent the contact and relationship we have with the deeply unconscious natural forces within. Such dreams suggest life is not simply operating blindly, but reaches out to us if we reach out to it; powerful unconscious energies in us; conscious awareness of one’s link with all life; contact with the one life within all things.

Example: About a month ago I decided to terminate a relationship which had lasted more than twenty years. Two nights after making this decision my body took over at night and started rocking, banging, pushing, the back arching. These alternated with rest and floods of soothing energy pulsating through my whole system. In the morning my back felt totally open and vulnerable. Soon after this event I had this dream – I was swimming in a broad river of clear, warm water full of life energy. It was deep and the river had rock cliffs rising either side of it, 40 meters high. Above that I could see the green of some trees in the sunlight. Further up stream the walls of rock joined and formed a tunnel.

I was swimming on my back when suddenly I saw a huge fish. It was about 4 meters long, coming out of a cave towards me. I panicked. Then I thought it might be harmless and went on swimming quietly. It was a dolphin, and very gently it swam behind my back and covered it, hugging me from behind. I lay absolutely quiet embraced by the powerful and gentle energy of this being. Energy was pouring into my back. Finally I reached round and touched the fin of the dolphin. It was like thick velvet. Rhea.

jellyfish – Feelings arising from the unconscious which might be painful / sting the dreamer, bring a sense of helplessness / spineless, or are from a non verbal level of memory.

octopus Feeling trapped by the influence of one’s mother; dependence upon mother; one’s own possessiveness or desire to cling to someone in a relationship. Hadfield in Dreams and Nightmares, says that a baby often seizes upon its mother’s breast with this feeling, so it may represent the desire to posses or devour others. The octopus can also symbolise any unconscious fear which may drag us into its realm of irrational terror, or any influence you fear will engulf you.

sea lion It is similar to seal described below, but has also the male has the charcter of a bull type creature, who has a tremendous fight to get a mate and to produce offspring. The female sea lion is seeing who is the more dominat male to mate with and produce her child. So it is very much about our own primal instinct to mate and carry on the next generation.

 Example: I was standing on top of a small mound or rock, about fifteen feet high. At the base of this mound my wife was bending down looking at something. Nearby was a buffalo which was a smooth skinned blue bull. It had the rounded body lines of a sea lion. I sensed that it was going to charge at my wife’s behind. I called to her. The bull was walking toward her, speeding up as it approached. Then she was on the rock beside me. The bull was now excited and running around. I was anxious it might get at us somehow. On my left, I could see the mound connected with a flat area of higher ground, and I hoped the bull would not get onto the higher level and attack us.

The dreamer, who had a habit of not having regular sex with his wife, realised that his standing on the rock represented his being independent from his wife. But the bull/sea lion in him saw his wife’s attractive behind was an excitement to his own instinctive urges. He was anxious that the animals side of him would get to him, which he felt as an attack.

seal As the seal can emerge from the water entirely and live on land, the seal is sometimes used to represent the emergence from the womb and the pleasures or difficulties of life as a ‘land animal’ physically independent of our mother. This is especially so if it is a baby seal. It can also depict the emergence into your conscious life of your deepest instincts and life energies – in Eastern terminology the kundalini. Otherwise the possible meanings are much the same as dolphin – see above.

shark Fear of death; fear of the collective unconscious, or loss of self in the impersonal Whole or All; the power of the unconscious – so its protectiveness; someone who is a ‘shark’ or unscrupulous.

shell fish Often the defensive shell we use to avoid hurt or sexual or emotional involvement; the female sexual organs.

Clam: Emotional withdrawal. Some part of your feelings may be closed up. The clam suggests there is some sort of outer hardness to protect a sensitivity or hurt. Often the defensive shell we use to avoid hurt or sexual or emotional involvement; the female sexual organs.

Oyster: A defensive shell, but may link with sexuality through common association of eating oysters as an aphrodisiac; tight lipped; secretive; frigidity. See: crab; pearl under jewels.

Lacking shell: Our naked vulnerability.

swordfish The same as fish but with the fear of being hurt by our realisations.

turtle There are so many different sizes of turtles it is difficult to be specific, but turtles are creatures that can live under water and also on land. They also have a protective shell they can withdraw into, and these are probably the main points your dream uses to depict something of yourself. So this part of your dream may link with feelings of deeply inner feelings or even vulnerabilities that are surfacing or being felt at present.

In other words you may feel vulnerable and withdraw into a protective shell – or are emerging from such vulnerability. It may be referring to a time in the past you did one or the other.

For women the turtle can appear in dreams about pregnancy, so you may dream this if you are, or are trying to become pregnant. See: Pregnancy and Dreams.

The turtle is a slow mover, but nevertheless is a survivor and can live easily in different environments. So the turtle might reflect a need for you to acknowledge these aspects of your own behaviour or character.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling vulnerable at the moment, and if so what about?

Are there ways I withdraw sometimes, and in what way do I do that?

What am I feeling from deep within me?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Processing Dreams – Edgar Cayce

whale The powerful evolutionary drive involved in reproduction, which lies behind individual male or femaleness; the beneficent power of the collective unconscious. Also the ability to dive deeply into ones unconscious life process and awareness.

Example: ‘I was leaning over the settee with my hands cupped under my chin looking out of the window. The view was spectacular, in that it was as if the house was situated on top of a cliff overlooking a huge bay, shaped like a horseshoe, with the house in the middle. From the sea suddenly, coming into the bay I could see three enormous whales making their way toward me. As I was staring in amazement they began to transform themselves and come up out of the water as three giant Viking like figures. They were so huge, that the water came up only to their knees and everything was moving so slowly, as they waded towards me. It was the most awe inspiring thing I had ever seen in my life.’ Sue B.

The bay, the beautiful sea, the sperm? whales / men, show Sue touching the most primordial yet inspiring aspects of her own womanhood and urge to love.

See: Christ under archetypes; religion and dreams; sea. Idioms: Big fish; big fish in a small pond; cold fish; fish for compliments; fish out of water; queer fish; smell something fishy.

Useful Questions and Hints:

 

Am I meeting a deeper awareness of my relationship with the fundamental drives in me?

Has a change occurred where I am starting the inner journey into who I am beyond the surface personality?

Have I recently felt a wider awareness of what I am?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Processing Dreams – Edgar Cayce